ment did not know what he intended, nor what he did not intend. He levied troops by act of Parliament, and the next moment caſhier'd them. He threatned, he begg'd pardon; he ſet a price upon Cardinal Mazarine's head, and afterwards congratulated him in a public manner. Our civil wars under Charles the ſixth were bloody and cruel, thoſe of the League execrable, and that of the [1]Frondeurs ridiculous.
That for which the French chiefly reproach the Engliſh Nation, is, the murther of King Charles the Firſt, whom his ſubjects treated exactly as he wou'd have treated them, had his Reign been proſperous. After all, conſider on one ſide, Charles the firſt defeated in a pitch'd battle, impriſon'd, try'd, ſentenc'd to die in Weſtminſter-hall, and then beheaded: And on the other, the Emperor Henry the ſeventh, poiſon'd by
- ↑ Frondeurs, in its proper sense Slingers, and figuratively Cavillers, or lovers of contradiction; was a name given to a league or party that oppos'd the French miniſtry, i.e. Cardinal Mazarine in 1648. See Rochefault's Memoirs.
